100 books like We Need New Names

The canon of anti-colonial, anti-racism writing from and about Africa includes many authors whose passion and insights are sometimes muddied by turgid or masculinist prose. For me, Rodney stands out – and stands the test of time – by the way he so masterfully weaves history into a compelling narrative that utterly demolishes the lies and conceits about supposed Western benevolence toward the continent. Scales fell from my eyes the first time (of many) I read this book. And yes, Rodney is almost as androcentric in his language, sources, and arguments as was the norm in those days. But his acknowledgment of the dignity of African women is implicit, and his discussion of the regressive elements of the colonial economy and education for African women and girls presaged a field of scholarly enquiry and activism that still intrigues me.

For those who study or teach about Africa, it is essential to know the pioneers of struggles for justice on the continent. African intellectuals eloquent in European languages began calling out injustices as early as the 18th century. To my mind, however, Nkabinde is a particularly impressive pioneer from the early 21st. It’s not just that African women have been routinely overlooked by historians. The very existence of African lesbians and transwomen was until very recently completely denied. Here, then, for the very first time, an African woman tells of her coming to sexual self-awareness, first as a spirit medium for a powerful male ancestor and then through modern sexual identity discourses. It is a poignant appeal to the humanistic potential of African traditional cultures when married to a universal human rights framework.

A big mistake in much radical analysis is to characterize problems in dualistic terms that externalize responsibility from Africa (Rodney, of course, is wide open to that critique). Thus, colonialism is not just irredeemably bad but simple to identify and directly related to white skin. The end of formal colonialism provided new targets in sometimes caricature form: black-skin-white-mask neocolonialism and neoliberalism, notably. Such things undoubtedly exist. However, Kenworthy’s brilliant, gob-smacking analysis of the unintended consequences of life-saving technologies reveals levels of complexity and complicity that belie easy dualisms. How does something that promises liberation from mass suffering and death (anti-retroviral drugs) become a machine to entrench corrupt elites and opportunistic NGOs, to sell cheap textiles in America, and to exploit poor women’s unremunerated care work? Read, weep, and lose your illusions about corporate social responsibility.

This is no less than Kasril’s fourth memoir, and the one that resonates most with my own existential worries as a privileged white man. Why did a nice, working-class, Jewish boy from Johannesburg take up armed struggle against institutionalized racism? Become a cabinet minister in the country’s first democratic government devoted to expanding social welfare for Africans? Become a trenchant critic of the rot that subsequently set into the party he helped bring to power?

With profound humility and wit, Kasrils takes us through his boyhood years to reflect upon the often-humiliating process of acquiring political consciousness. He speaks to anyone with a leg up in a rigged system: it’s good to have existential doubts about your privileges. But you should still, and more importantly, you can still do the right thing.

I found myself involved with the characters and came to care for them. Moreover, I was struck by the author's desire to inspire readers to encourage discussion of Afghanistan and so keep the nation in the wider public consciousness.

The book certainly did that for me and is unforgettable, even though I read it over 20 years ago! It brought me alive and helped me understand issues facing those in Afghanistan and in my own community of Sindhis from my country of origin, Pakistan (formerly British India when my family had to flee following the partition of British India in 1947).

I read this book in high school and it messed. Me. Up. So much so that I remember it in vivid detail to this day and credit it with my desire to write dysfunctional family fiction.

I’d be hard-pressed in real life (thank God) to find a family suffering from issues ranging from incestuous relationships through moral superiority and unforgiving rigidity up to greed and murder… all of which feels like the tip of the iceberg.

Reading the tale of a family who has gone so far off the rails will, if nothing else, make you appreciate the mundane problems your own family has. And isn’t that why we read this genre?

You know when you first go to someone else’s house and realise that not every family lives the way yours does?

It’s part of the coming-of-age process and can be both illuminating and destabilising. In Adichie’s story, set in post-colonial Nigeria, 15-year-old Kambili gets the chance to escape her wealthy but religiously-oppressive household and stay with her vibrant, liberal aunt.

I love the way Kambili’s narrative expresses the new freedom she feels there: she has a voice at last and the liberty to experience a sexual awakening. She needs these new strengths as her own family disintegrates into tragedy.  

The experience in this book of orphaned siblings living in the streets of Lusaka is harrowing. The children’s narration of their experience is told in a matter-of-fact way which makes it more poignant because they have accepted their fate. A recommended read for anyone who likes stories about the dark side of growing up and feels like a good cry. This is because although Chimuka the protagonist is fictional; they are thousands of real Chimuka’s growing up on the streets. 

Danticat offers a gorgeously written memoir tracing her father’s life as US migrant, her uncle’s life as community leader who stayed in Haiti, and her relationship to both across both countries. The book was motivated by her Uncle Joseph’s horrifying, tragic death in the Krome Detention Center (originally built to detain Haitian refugees and notorious for abuses) after he fled home to claim asylum. But it is much more than a recounting of his death. It is a chronicle of a deeply connected family whose love exceeded borders. I cannot get this book out of my head. It helps my students understand that the violence of US borders is not abstract and cannot be captured in statistics or political rhetoric. It is about real people who navigate seemingly overwhelming obstacles put before them—sometimes building new lives from nothing, sometimes succumbing to the violence of US regimes. 

Unsettled by Reem Faruqi, loosely based on the author’s own story, chronicles the experience of Nurah, a thirteen-year-old girl who moves from Pakistan to Georgia. She experiences racism and prejudice in a variety of forms, she makes new friends, discovers new passions, undergoes loss, and learns to adjust to a vastly different place. Many verse novels tell stories of immigration, but this one stands for its consistent lyricism and its honest, moving portrayal of a coming-of-age experience that is at once specific and universal.